Mexico will start first phase of emergency 911 in October

The first stage of the emergency number 911 in 16 Mexican states will start operating in October and by January 2017 the Federal Telecommunications Institute (Ifetel, for its acronym in Spanish) foresees to extend it to the rest of the country.The head of the Ifetel Concessions and Services Unit, Rafael Eslava Herrada, said that the routing phase of the first stage will start on October 3, where only emergency calls directed to 066 will be addressed.

On December 1 the location of fixed numers will start and on March 1, 2017 the geolocation of mobile numbers will begin in Baja California, Colima, Chiapas, Chihuahua, Durango, Guanajuato, Morelos, Nuevo Leon, Quintana Roo, Sonora, Tlaxcala, Puebla, Zacatecas, Coahuila, Nayarit and Oaxaca.

He said that the call routing phase is planned for January 3, 2017; the location of fixed numbers will begin on March 1 and the geolocation of mobile numbers on June 1.

He explained that the first phase, which starts in October means that the number 911 will be available for these states, in which reports will be taken, patrols will be sent and emergencies will be attended.

He further explained that the second phase of fixed location phones is an exchange of databases information with operators; while the geolocation for mobiles is more complicated due to the triangulation of calls, therefore, they are working with companies in order to have the greatest degree of accuracy.

He also said that the country has 200 thousand users with numbers starting with the number 911, which will be changed to avoid routing problems, a process that has already started.